This website is funded in part through a grant from the
Bureau of Justice Assistance,
Office of Justice Programs, and the
U.S. Department of Justice.
Neither the U.S. Department of Justice nor any of its components operate, control, are responsible for, or necessarily endorse, this website (including, without limitation, its content, technical infrastructure, and policies, and any services or tools provided).

Reentry Media Clips

Chief Public Defender Corbin Brewster said Tulsa’s unique spin on the app is to develop an interface that includes a social worker component. “If the client says, ‘Well, I don’t have a ride that day,’ or ‘I’ve got a problem with that,’ then that message comes back into our system,” Brewster said. “And we can individually respond and then come up with individual solutions for whatever the issue is.”

Now it was time to start ushering into the simulator a 30-member pool of “recently-released prisoners”—played by our prison’s deputy wardens, captains and officers. They all entered the room every bit as clueless as we’d been, dumbstruck at being made to be convicts.

Under Connecticut law, felons are presumed to lack the character and fitness required to practice law unless they can prove otherwise. I might eventually be allowed to practice law, or, I realized with a cold, dull clarity, I might not.

In 2014, as the People’s Paper Co-op was beginning, artists and activists Courtney Bowles and Mark Strandquist began working with community members at the Village of Arts and Humanities to discuss the causes, impacts, and potential solutions “to the collateral consequences of criminal records,” says Strandquist.

The Milwaukee Reentry Council’s goal is to reduce recidivism by 50 percent within the next five years. The program is focusing on Milwaukee neighborhoods with high rates of re-offending, mostly on the North Side.

“We have so much to offer,” 62-year-old Mark Thompson told me, referring to the many reformed old-timers behind the wall. “It makes more sense helping younger guys understand their anger and addiction out there,” he said, “than dealing with it in here.”

Less than 36 hours after his release from prison, Steve Perkins sat in front of a class of law students, giving them advice. Perkins hadn’t been in a traditional classroom in more than four decades, yet here he was as evidence that youthful offenders once sent away for life could be rehabilitated — even after killing someone.

Pennsylvania has a new idea to help lower recidivism rates. Two state agencies have launched a pilot program that teaches financial literacy to inmates at state prisons through a course on credit and banking basics. The class is a collaboration between the Department of Corrections and the Department of Banking and Securities.

Florida is one of seven states that bar people with a criminal record from receiving victim compensation. The laws are meant to keep limited funds from going to people who are deemed undeserving. But the rules have had a broader effect: an analysis of records in two of those states—Florida and Ohio—shows that the bans fall hardest on black victims and their families.

In 2017, NC Works Career Centers staff served 9,192 individuals who self-disclosed they had a criminal record in their past. Statistics show that employment services and information were offered to 2,200 inmates in 2017 who were incarcerated at the time of service.

This website is funded in part through a grant from the
Bureau of Justice Assistance,
Office of Justice Programs,
U.S. Department of Justice.
Neither the U.S. Department of Justice nor any of its components operate, control, are responsible for,
or necessarily endorse, this website (including, without limitation, its content, technical
infrastructure, and policies, and any services or tools provided).